Divest from death. Invest in life.

You can tell what a society’s priorities are by how it spends its resources.

Last week, Hurricane Helene “carved a 500-mile path of destruction across six states,” reported CNN, “causing catastrophic flooding and killing more than 230 people.” But before a full count of the wreckage and death could even be made, FEMA announced a $9 billion funding shortfall. With another hurricane predicted to hit land within days, the federal agency responsible for coordinating disaster recovery efforts was out of money. 

The same day that FEMA announced its budget shortfall, Israel announced it would receive another $8.7 billion in military aid from the U.S. Of course, Israel isn’t promising to do anything for flooded homes in Appalachia. It is entering its second year of a genocidal campaign against Palestinians, second month of leveling of cities in Lebanon, and continuing preparations for military strikes against Iran.  

The Biden administration is making it clearer by the day that it would rather pay for the murder of Palestinian children than the rescue and rebuilding of communities in the U.S. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Right now, what we need is a new antiwar movement — with Palestine at its center…

Palestine is the center of our struggle.

For a year, people have marched across the world demanding an end to the Israeli government’s genocidal war on Palestinians — and an end to the U.S. weapons shipments that are fueling this genocide.

On university campuses and in cities across the country, people made the connection between our tax and tuition dollars and the decimation of Gaza. When the U.S. government gives the Israeli government billions of dollars in military aid, the Israeli government turns around and spends that money to buy bombs, planes, and weapons from U.S. weapons manufacturers. And it’s our tax dollars that fund these purchases.

This is the connection that drove thousands of students to erect encampments demanding divestment from weapons manufacturers: they recognized that solidarity with Palestinians means an end to the endless funding of war.

And this is what solidarity means: that our futures are intertwined, and that it’s incumbent on us to build a movement strong enough to divest from war and invest in life.

An antiwar movement with Palestine as its locus.

Over the past year, the Palestine solidarity movement has grown historically large. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been resisting Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing every single day, forced to livestream unspeakable atrocities while the world watches. And still, the U.S. government and weapons companies line up to keep arming this generational nightmare. 

In the face of this, we must reckon with the fact that all we have done has not been enough to stop a year of genocide against the people of Gaza, not enough to stop the bombs from raining on Beirut. 

Following a year of protest, the seeds have been sown for a mass antiwar movement with Palestine at its center. The question is before us: Will we continue to allow our government and our communities to fund the murder of Palestinians and disregard the lives of our neighbors? The connections are clear. All of our futures depend on the future of Palestine.

No weapons for genocide.

Together, we’ve already made over 4,000 phone calls to our Senators demanding that they support legislation blocking $20 billion in weapons for the Israeli military. We can’t let up the pressure: Call now. 

What we’re doing.

Jewish Voice for Peace chapters in 26 cities across the country gathered to hold Tashlich rituals mourning a year of Israeli genocide and demanding that our communities and the U.S. government divest from and stop arming Israel. 

What we’re reading.

The U.S. government is prioritizing its support for Israel’s genocide over natural disaster recovery, while Congresspeople take the hurricane as an opportunity to spread racist, anti-immigrant lies, writes Fadi Kafeety for Jacobin.

What we’re writing.

JVP’s Executive Director Stefanie Fox reflects on a year of of unspeakable horror, “matched only by the nightmare of ever-escalating war now unfolding,” for Time magazine.

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